The exhibition Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese and the accompanying publication retrace the evolution of Venetian painting in the second half of the sixteenth century, between Veronese's definitive move to the city in 1553 and Titian's death in 1576. This period saw a unique synthesis take place, with the adaptation of the Mannerism of Central Italy, born in Florence and Rome, to the naturalist vision of the world that characterized the Venetian soul. Combining the chronological and the thematic, the exhibition layout sets the works of the three leading sixteenth-century Venetian painters face to face, and complements them with interpretations by lesser-known artists working in Venice during the same epoch: Bassano, Palma the Younger and Sustris.

What makes this period particularly interesting is that it embraces a singular time when three great masters were working simultaneously on then fashionable subjects: Titian, the inventive genius whose late style disconcerts with its ceaseless transformation; Tintoretto the dynamic genius, nurturing an art marked by superhuman energy; and Veronese the decorative genius, whose palette and Apollonian serenity possessed a universal fascination for artists into the twentieth century.